Emmys 2016: the winners, losers, and best moments of the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards

Game of Thrones and Veep have taken home the Emmy awards for Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Comedy Series, respectively. It's the second year in a row for both shows.

Game of Thrones also won for Outstanding Direction (Miguel Sapochnik) and Outstanding Writing (David Benioff and D.B. Weiss), both for the penultimate episode of the season "Battle of the Bastards." Veep's only other honor of the night was for lead actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who now holds the record for most consecutive wins in the category (she now has five, breaking her tie with Helen Hunt).

It only took four seasons, but Tatiana Maslany has finally won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her work in Orphan Black. From the very debut of the show, Maslany's work has been singled out by both fans and critics alike because she doesn't have to just play one character well. Given the show's premise — she plays one of a series of clones — she has had to play multiple characters, each with different personality traits, quirks, and accents, often playing against herself in many scenes.

But for the first two seasons of the show, Maslany's name was strangely absent when Emmy nominations were announced. Granted, given that the show is a BBC America production, it hasn't necessarily had the same kind of visibility as other network's programs, but the unique nature of Maslany's work has cried out for recognition.

Rami Malek just won his first-ever Emmy for his role as Elliot in USA's Mr. Robot. Malek accepted the award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series by stepping on stage and whispering to the audience, "Please tell me you're seeing this too," mimicking the nervous paranoia of the character he plays on the show.

"I play a young man who is like so many of us profoundly alienated," Malek said, "and the unfortunate thing is, I’m not sure how many of us would want to hang out with a guy like Elliot. I want to honor the Elliots because there’s a little bit of Elliot in all of us, isn’t there?"

The 68th Primetime Emmy Awards have wrapped and let's just get it out of the way: Veep. Game of Thrones. The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story. Got it? Good. "It’s just nice to be nominated" is true of every person up until the point where a winner is chosen. We've been keeping a running tally of all the winners so far tonight.

Amazon’s Transparent took an early lead in the comedy categories with two wins — one for directing, and one for lead actor Jeffrey Tambor, who used his speech to call for more transgender performers in transgender roles: "I would not be unhappy [if I were] the last cisgender man to play a female transgender on TV." Ultimately, though, top honor went to Veep for the second year in a row.

The limited series may be home to some of the coolest, most creative work on television, and at the Emmys tonight The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story dominated the format, taking home five different awards — including Outstanding Limited Series.

Created by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (Ed Wood), the Ryan Murphy-produced show is a fictional account of the O.J. Simpson trial, and started Emmy season as a standout with 22 nominations (it was bested only by Game of Thrones, with 23 nominations). The show had already won four awards as part of the Creative Arts Emmy Awards last weekend, where it was lauded for more technical categories like editing and sound mixing. But Sunday night's ceremony was where the show was poised to make a big impression, with American Crime Story nominated in almost all main categories — and some of the show's actors even competing against their own co-stars.

HBO's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver has just won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety Talk Series. The award was won last year and every year from 2003 to 2012 by The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, but Stewart's Daily Show successor Trevor Noah was not nominated this year.

This award is an affirmation of the bandied-about claim that Oliver has taken over Stewart's role as late night's sharpest dissenting voice in the last year. That said, Samantha Bee's Full Frontal wasn't nominated for this year's ceremony, but it was seen as a huge snub and likely won't happen again. The competition will be much stiffer in 2017, as Bee (another Daily Show alum) has gotten rave reviews for being even more biting than anything we've ever seen from Oliver or Stewart. She recently invited anyone who's voting for Jill Stein to address their ballots to her "snatch," for example!

Jeffrey Tambor has won the Emmy award for Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series for the second year in a row for his performance in Amazon's Transparent. Accepting the award, he told a story about meeting Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, saying, "He took my hand and said 'you can call me Jeff Bezos.'"

He used the moment to ask that Hollywood "give transgender talent a chance, give them auditions, give them their stories," adding that he would "not be unhappy" were he "the last cisgender man to play a female transgender on TV." Tambor expressed similar sentiments when he accepted awards at the 2015 Emmy Awards, the 2015 Golden Globes, and the 2016 Screen Actors Guild Awards. At the SAG Awards he also dedicated his trophy to "the non-Maura Pfeffermans who don't have a lot of cash for their operations, for their medicines, for their freedom."

Tonight, television will broadcast a celebration of all things television. The 68th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, organized by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, will honor the biggest and best shows in TV in the past year (with a little help and campaigning from their respective networks, of course). Red carpet coverage starts at 7PM ET on ABC, with the awards themselves starting at 8PM ET. You'll be able to stream everything live via ABC's website or via its Android / iOS app — in all those cases, that's going to require login credentials from a TV provider.

Update: It has begun! Check out all the Emmy winners here!

In the last 15 years, the Emmys have used the term "miniseries" to describe (and honor) a two-part network dramatization of the Anne Frank story, five incarnations of a 13-part horror bonanza, a six-hour movie version of America's most famous play, and a disaster of an eight-part Kennedys history which aired on the reality TV network Reelz. For a long time, it was basically a meaningless word in a mess of a category.

But as TV viewing habits and network practices have evolved, that's changed. Networks hungry for attention and acclaim have quite literally reshaped the definition of miniseries, taking a category that in 2010 could only find two projects to nominate, and turning it into the home of some of the best and most popular shows on television — and which promises to be the most hard-fought battle of this weekend's Primetime Emmys ceremony.

The 68th Emmy Awards are taking place this Sunday, and Jimmy Kimmel will host, which means he'll be responsible for some kind of pithy and irreverent opening monologue that will (probably clumsily) attempt to sum up the state of television. If the idea of watching that excites you, but you'd prefer to avoid the rest of the awards show (or you don't have any way to watch it), Facebook has a solution. After Kimmel's monologue streams on linear television, the whole thing will be posted as a 360-degree video to Facebook.

As Variety reports, the clip will live on Kimmel's Facebook page, ABC's Facebook page, and the Emmys / Television Academy Facebook page. The video is reportedly part of a deal that the TV Academy has with Facebook that also includes a 360-degree video of the red carpet, Facebook Live videos of behind-the-scenes footage and actor Q&As, and a "thank you cam."

Oculus Story Studio has won an Emmy for its second film, a Pixar-esque animated short called Henry. Henry was named best outstanding original interactive program, part of an interactive media category that was added to the TV-focused awards in 2013. While it’s not the first virtual reality experience to win an Emmy, it’s the first time an original VR production — not one promoting an already-established franchise — has taken home a prize. It’s also a first for Oculus Story Studio, a division of Oculus focused on interactive film.

In a statement today, Henry director Ramiro Lopez Dau called his project "a step into the unknown world of making an emotional VR movie." Where Oculus Story Studio’s first project was a sci-fi short with no traditional characters, Henry followed an animated hedgehog named Henry, whose story was narrated by Elijah Wood. It was originally shown in 2015, but publicly released earlier this year. Oculus Story Studio is currently working on a third project, called Dear Angelica.

The TV Academy opened up its Emmy Awards to include shortform categories this past March, which expanded potential nominees to YouTube producers, artists at AdultSwim, and elsewhere in the land of new media. Among the nominees for an Emmy in Outstanding Short Form Variety Series is the Honest Trailers series from ScreenJunkies.

Honest Trailers is a consistently hilarious YouTube series that nails all the clichés in today's movie trailers, complete with the perfect growly narrations of the typical Movie Trailer Voiceover Guy. The channel has over 5.6 million subscribers, and most memorably cast Ryan Reynolds to parody his own movie in the "Deadpool (Feat. Deadpool)" video.

Game of Thrones, The Americans, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, and Fargo are leading this year's pack of Emmy nominations. The Television Academy enlisted Anthony Anderson (a previous nominee for his work on Black-ish) and Lauren Graham (Gilmore Girls, Parenthood) for this morning's nomination presentation, which covers TV shows, limited series, and movies aired between June 1st, 2015 and May 31st, 2016. Jimmy Kimmel is going to host the awards on ABC on September 18th. You can check out a partial list of major nominees below; the full list is available on the Emmys website.

Many TV connoisseurs are excited about the recognition heaped on The Americans, a critically beloved show that's largely been left out in the cold during Emmy season until this year. In addition to the show's nod for Outstanding Drama Series, Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell picked up nominations for their lead performances, and the show was recognizing in the Writing and Directing Categories as well. Mr. Robot's solid performance wasn't a huge surprise given the show's explosion last summer, but some people might consider Christian Slater's exclusion in the Supporting Actor category a slight snub. (Seriously, Jon Snow got the nod over him?)